Ian Hickson wrote: > On Wed, 12 Sep 2001, Frank Hecker wrote: > >>Ian Hickson wrote: >> >>>Why do we care about LGPL projects and not, say, projects using the >>>original BSD license, the Apache license, the Zope license, the IBM public >>>license, the Qt public license, the Sun Industry Standards Source License, >>>etc, etc, etc? >>> >>Because nobody has ever claimed that the BSD license, etc., are >>"incompatible" with the MPL. >> > > "The BSD license, etc., are "incompatible" with the MPL." (In that you > cannot cut and paste from one to the other, not in that you cannot link > code from one with another.)
You can create a "larger work" (executable or library) out of MPL code combined with code under pretty much any license. As long as you respect the MPL requirements for the MPL files and whatever requirements might be on the non-MPL files there are no problems. The MPL is "compatible" with licenses that allow this, so we don't need to make any special accomodations for BSD, Apache, etc. You cannot, however, combine MPL and GPL code into a "larger work" (according to the FSF), because the GPL makes claims on the entire work which cannot be satisfied while also satisfying MPL terms for the MPL code. >>OK. So then I say in turn that if the MPL is "incompatible" with the GPL >>then it must be "incompatible" with the LGPL as well [...]. > > This doesn't follow. The GPL and LGPL are totally different licenses. LGPL section 10 has the same "You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein" clause that is claimed to be the source of our incompatibility with the GPL. >>>For that matter, why do we want to promote _any_ non-strong-copyleft >>>projects, other than Mozilla itself? >>> >>This has nothing to do with promoting a particular philosophy of >>software licensing. > > Maybe for you; for me that is a very important consideration. I'm lost, what's important to you? Are you unhappy that MPL is compatible with proprietary licenses? Do you not understand why that was required from the beginning given the commercial origin of the code? >>It has everything to do with permitting Mozilla code >>to be used in as many different projects as possible, regardless of what >>licenses are being used for those projects' code. > > If that is really the truth, then why are we not putting the Mozilla > source into the public domain? (Seriously.) It was discussed, and using a BSD-like license was strongly favored by some. The semi-copyleft of the MPL seemed like a good compromise, allowing the Mozilla project the possibility of taking back improvements and ensuring some visibility if our code got incorporated into popular projects. -Dan Veditz
